Rush Limbaugh targets 'leftist freaks' at SPLC, warns conservative CEOs not to partner with group

Nationally syndicated radio host Rush Limbaugh railed against the Southern Poverty Law Center during the Tuesday broadcast of his show and declared that many in the media treat the SPLC as "the Vatican."

Calling the group “leftist freaks,” Limbaugh opined that the SPLC is “out to destroy” conservative organizations that raise money.

Limbaugh's remarks

Limbaugh attacked the SPLC during his broadcast by referring to them as a "hate group."

"The Southern Poverty Law Center is perhaps one of the biggest hate groups on the left," he blasted. "They tar and feather and slander right-wing groups and call them hate groups. They’ve got a map on their website, and whenever a right-wing group that says or does anything that the Southern Poverty Law Center, which is a bunch of leftist freaks, all you have to do is disagree with them and you are called a hater."

Setting his sights on corporations who have publicly supported the SPLC — specifically Apple and JPMorgan Chase — Limbaugh asked if the CEOs of the respective companies didn't realize that the SPLC was "one of the biggest hate groups on the left," while criticizing the companies for their support of the organization.

"If your conservative group raises money, then the Southern Poverty Law Center is out to destroy you," Limbaugh said. "So I asked the question: Do these CEOs not know this? And it was a legitimate question because if all they do, if their total source of information happens to be CNN, MSNBC, the New York Times, and maybe the Washington Post, it is entirely possibly they don’t know the truth about the Southern Poverty Law Center."

He added, "In the mainstream media, the Southern Poverty Law Center is treated as the Vatican."

Airing his grievances about the SPLC's agenda, Limbaugh said, "If [the SPLC supports] gay marriage and LGBT and all these other things and you happen to disagree with it, you are the hater."

"You hate," he added. "You are a hate-filled person that is bordering on the use of violence. And that’s how they characterize these groups, and it led to a deranged leftist walking into the office of the Family Research Council and actually shooting at somebody. It’s what contributes to this deranged guy shooting up Republicans at a baseball practice in Virginia."

Limbaugh isn't the only conservative fed up with the SPLC

The Washington-based Family Research Council was one of the latest conservative organizations to attack the SPLC for its ways.

"Despite SPLC's baggage — which also includes connections to two liberal gunmen – they continue to be cited as a credible source by mainstream media and others," a spokesperson for the Family Research Council told the Washington Examiner. "With SPLC in the spotlight, we must expose this organization for what it really is — a left wing smear group who has become exactly what they set out to fight, spreading hate and putting targets on people's backs."

It was revealed last week that D. James Kennedy Ministries in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, sued the SPLC for labeling the Christian organization an “active hate group” because it holds to traditional Christian views on homosexuality and marriage.

Kennedy Ministries spokesman John Rabe told Fox News that the SPLC's designation of Kennedy Ministries as a "hate group alongside the KKK and neo-Nazis" is "completely disingenuous."

"We desire all people, with no exceptions, to receive the love of Christ and his forgiveness and healing," Rabe said. "We unequivocally condemn violence, and we hate no one."

Even former presidential candidate Ben Carson was targeted by the SPLC and placed on the "extremist watch list" in 2015 over his conservative and traditional Christian views about homosexuality and marriage, the Washington Times reported.

Brief history of the SPLC

The SPLC's website states that they are a civil rights organization that "is dedicated to fighting hate and bigotry and to seeking justice for the most vulnerable members of our society."

The organization was founded in Montgomery, Alabama, in 1971 and was instrumental in tamping down the hateful effects of the KKK during the 1970s by filing lawsuits against the hate group and effectively bankrupting them.

The SPLC's original aims were to fight poverty, racial discrimination, and the death penalty.

Since 1986, however, the SPLC began turning their focus on battling varying forms of "extremism" and, most recently, "right-wing extremism."

As a result of their pivot in practice, the entire legal staff resigned from the organization in 1986.